146 Ballot Initiatives This General Election, 160 of Them in 2024

and this general election voters in 41 states will decide to adopt or reject 146 ballot initiatives. Many of these initiatives will impact voter turnout in key battleground states, deciding which party controls the White House and Congress. Our Washington correspondent Luis Martinez has more on this story. Of those 146 ballot initiatives, the states of Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New York, Nevada, and South Dakota have ballot measures that seek state constitutional rights to abortion. In the state of Nebraska, the ballot measure seeks to amend the Constitution to allow abortion until field viability. Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrats in down-the-ballot races have been campaigning heavily on this issue. More than one in three women lives in a state with a Trump abortion ban. Today, except for Virginia, every state in the South, including Georgia, has a Trump ban. The stakes of this election, I think about my 19-year-old daughter who's in college. She's a sophomore and she literally has fewer rights in this moment than her grandmother and mother. Another ballot initiative that stands out are those related to drug policy used in the 2024 general election. Three states will decide on the legalization of marijuana. The ballot measure race in the state of Florida has been the most expensive this cycle with more than $100 million poured into campaigning for and against the legalization of marijuana. And Vice President Kamala Harris has been leaning into the issue to appeal to Black men. And as Vice President, I have been a champion for bringing marijuana down on the schedule. So instead of it being ranked up there with heroin, we bring it down. And my pledge is as President, I will work on decriminalizing it because I know exactly how those laws have been used to disproportionately impact certain populations and specifically Black men. The Florida Senate race is a toss-up and it could be impacted by having both abortion and marijuana in the ballot. The same can be said of the presidential race in the state of Arizona and Nevada, both battleground states with abortion in a battle initiative. Reporting from Washington, D.C., Luis Eduardo Martinez, NTD News.